Many different types of chemical compounds have been used in the past to retard or inhibit various kinds of tumors. Such compounds include insulin, fluorouracil, estrogen, tolbutamide, biguanides and nitrogen mustards. However, the degree of successful therapy to date has been marginal at best so that the search for better and more effective anti-tumor agents especially in humans continues at a feverish pace.
In 1967, Weitzel and co-workers reported in Z. Physiol. Chem. 348, 433-442 that hydrazine acetate and sulfate inhibit in vivo the growth of ascites carcinoma and sarcoma 180 in the mouse and Walker carcinosarcoma in the rat. It is well known that such encouraging results in lower animals cannot be extrapolated to determine what effect the same compounds would have on other tumor types or even on the same tumors in humans. Until now, hydrazine sulfate in particular has never been used to treat cancerous cachexia.